


Keeping Up with the Kobolds

by buzzbuzz34



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Blue Vein Disease, Gen, Mass Abuse, Most of it is very very soft though don't worry, Needles, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Quarantine, Slavery, Spoilers, forced imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23100823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buzzbuzz34/pseuds/buzzbuzz34
Summary: After Shoin is defeated and the imprisoned kobolds are freed, some of them need a safe place to stay while they come to terms with the horrible abuse they suffered.  Despite his protestations, Oscar Wilde is tasked with looking after them.  At first, he finds them to be an inconvenience, but soon grows exceptionally fond of them and becomes a part of their little family, a family he wouldn't trade for anything.
Relationships: Oscar Wilde & Kobolds
Comments: 39
Kudos: 48





	1. Strange Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers! Especially for Episodes 149 and 150!

“What. Is _that_?”

“Their name is Znal,” Hamid snapped, placing a defensive hand on Znal’s shoulder. “They are a kobold.”

“Okay, great,” Wilde said unconvincingly. “Why is it here? What is it doing in my inn?”

“Shoin had enslaved a whole bunch of kobolds in his base. There were hundreds of them, drugged into submission and barely alive. Znal here was… a sort of maintenance worker and jailor for many of the other kobolds. They’re very upset about their role in it all, even though they didn’t have a choice, they were drugged and manipulated and…” Hamid could barely continue at the thought of all those imprisoned kobolds, eyes staring out but seeing nothing as their life was stolen from them. 

Azu picked up when Hamid stumbled. “We freed them. Once the potions wore off and they regained their senses, some of them decided to stay put, retake the base and the tunnels underneath it for themselves again. Some left. Didn’t want anything to do with that place anymore, so they wandered off to make their own home and warrens somewhere else.”

“I miss Skraak,” Hamid sighed. “I hope they’re alright.”

Azu nodded, but carried on, “A few others are in Cel’s village. They’re there with them now. Some are doing science, others are helping fortify the place in case any remaining thugs do send an ambush after them. We're going to stop by, pick up Cel, and check on things as we head out."

“The point is,” Hamid continued, “there are some kobolds that aren’t well enough or don’t feel comfortable in the tunnels or the village or wandering off into the unknown. After everything they went through, they’re traumatized, and some are still sort of affected by the drugs, even though they wore off for most of them. So, we thought that the best place for them would be here. They would be safe and have a nice place to stay while the world gets sorted out. They’re immune to the blue vein disease, so you don’t have to worry about them infecting anyone.”

Wilde listened to this explanation with a creased brow. When Hamid finished, Wilde turned to Zolf, hoping that he would reveal it was a bad joke or something of the like, but Zolf just shrugged. 

“I’m not real keen on the kobolds either,” Zolf said, “but they need help. What was done to them was… horrible beyond words. We can’t take ‘em with us, even if some of them might want to come along, so they need a safe place to stay. I know it’s not ideal, but… if you could look after them, we’d really appreciate it.”

“Please, Oscar,” Hamid said softly. 

“Fine!” Wilde exclaimed. “They can stay until you’re back from the next assignment. You can figure out what to do with them then.”

“Thank you,” Azu replied, then turned toward the door and disappeared outside. 

Wilde sighed. “So how many are there? Five, six?”

Before either Zolf or Hamid could correct him, nearly twenty kobolds raced into the inn in a clatter of tiny claws and screeched draconic noises. 

“Sorry, mate,” Zolf said sympathetically, while Hamid was relaying some last-minute instructions to Znal in draconic. 

“Did you all forget that there’s a war on?” Wilde asked, not really expecting an answer. 

Hamid turned to Wilde, holding Znal’s hand. “Now, none of them really speak English-”

“None of them speak English!?”

“Only draconic, but they understand Japanese, and they do tend to recognize tone and facial expressions, so you should be fine. Just make sure they have a place to sleep and plenty of food. We’ll be back in no time. Thanks, Oscar!”

Azu gave a smile and Zolf offered another nonchalant shrug, before the three of them exited the inn to collect Cel and head out on their next mission. 

And then, Wilde was alone with twenty kobolds, all staring up at him with expectant eyes. 

He couldn’t even say anything, the whole situation was so unexpected. For the first time ever, Oscar Wilde was at a loss for words. 

Where was he going to put them? He certainly couldn’t let animals have free reign of the inn. Even if it was relatively unoccupied – or had been, before being overrun by kobolds – it was occasionally used for important meetings, and he still needed peace and quiet to compose strategy for the war effort. Especially now with the many pieces of paperwork the team had brought back from Shoin’s base on the blue veined disease and the simulacra.

“Uh, follow me?” He said, not sure if any of the kobolds would understand him. 

As he started down the hallway, however, they all followed after him. 

“Their claws are going to ruin the hardwood floor,” he muttered to himself. 

He led them to a large, spare room on the ground floor that had been used mostly as storage, so was full of discarded tables and chairs in various states of neglect and disrepair. 

“In you go.”

The kobolds blinked at him, not understanding. 

“Go? This is your home? Home?”

Still, they didn’t move.

“Oh, come on.” Wilde stepped into the room, and the kobolds followed. “You will stay here,” he said slowly while miming ineffectually. “I will have food sent to you later. Okay, bye?”

Wilde was pondering what kobolds even ate when he stepped out of the door, only to turn back and see that all of the kobolds were following him again. 

“No! Stay here! Don’t leave! No!”

They may not have understood Wilde’s words, but they understood the fury on his face, and many of them instinctively drew away in fear. They remembered what it was like to face the wrath of their slavers, and their bodies tensed up as they thought they would experience that torment again. 

“No, I’m sorry… Why am I apologizing? Why am I talking to myself?” Wilde sighed and lowered his voice. “ _Please_ get in the room?”

The kobolds’ body language softened slightly, but still they didn’t move. 

Wilde gently crouched down and pushed the tiny beings into the room and slid the door shut on them once they were all clear. As he started to walk away, he shook his head and made a mental note to make sure one of the staff was responsible for getting them food and keeping them all in place. 

He barely managed one step down the hall, though, before he almost tripped on a kobold, staring up at him. 

“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in the room with the others.”

They let out a tiny squeak, and Wilde rolled his eyes. 

He put one hand on their back and, using his other hand, carefully opened the door and ushered the kobold inside, into the mass of its companions who were waiting right at the opening. 

“Stay. Good.”

He slid the door shut again and carried on his way. This time, he made it two steps down the hallway before he noticed a different kobold off to the side. This one was reaching up to open a door handle, but their little claws couldn’t quite make sense of the mechanism. With an even heavier sigh, Wilde grabbed the kobold by the scruff of their neck, reopened the door, and dropped the escapee into the horde. 

This time, it didn’t seem that any had escaped, but Wilde put a couple chairs in front of the door to the storage room, just in case. Finally, he could get some work done.


	2. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilde tries to get work done. The kobolds have other ideas.

The man responsible for providing meals to Wilde and the other individuals who made base in the inn was rather confused when he’d been told to put a bunch of raw fish in the formerly empty storage room, but whether that was from the request or from Wilde’s limited knowledge of the Japanese language was open to debate. 

Since locking the kobolds in that room, Wilde was almost able to forget about them. Finding them a place to stay or reintegrating them into their own society was Hamid and Azu’s problem, once they got back. All Wilde had to do now was keep working and make sure the chef kept tossing fish in that room. How they would be able to keep the kobolds from getting out while they did so, well, that was their concern now.

Or so Wilde thought. 

The first day was uneventful since the introduction of the inn’s new residents and Wilde actually found himself with a burst of productivity. He settled into bed, satisfied with a day’s hard work, and shut his eyes. 

Then he heard a guttural squeak. 

_Just ignore it,_ he told himself internally. _It’s an old inn. It makes noises. It’s definitely not what you think it is._

It was definitely what he thought it was.

After another couple chirps, Wilde finally rolled over and opened his eyes to see a kobold standing at the edge of his bed, their head barely poking over the top of the mattress. 

“Shoo.”

The kobold, naturally, didn’t move, but instead continued to stare at Wilde with worried eyes. 

“What do you want?”

Perhaps as an answer, the kobold began to climb up onto the bed, claws scrabbling to get a good hold on the blanket, but instead they just managed to pull the whole bedsheet onto the floor while they remained planted where they started. They cocked their head and chirped. 

Once the tiny dragon had begun to attempt to pull themselves onto the bed, Wilde was up and out in an instant. The kobold watched him approach and put up no fight when Wilde scooped them up under the arms to deposit them outside of his bedroom. 

“My space,” he instructed firmly. “Mine. Not for you.”

He shut the door behind him and moved a chair in front of it. He didn’t even want to think about how one of the kobolds managed to get out in the first place. He didn’t care. That was a problem for the morning. Or, later morning, as it was already the early hours of the day. Maintaining a healthy sleeping schedule had never been one of Wilde’s strong suits. 

Once he’d fixed the blankets and crawled back into bed, Wilde almost expected to hear or see another kobold in his room, some other annoyance that would keep him from getting a good night’s sleep, but there was nothing. The trepidation slowly began to fade away and he found himself drifting off to sleep.

It was several hours later when Wilde heard someone in his room. 

Had someone found him? Was this an assault on their hidden base in this country?

A song of magic began to form on his lips as he reached for the dagger he kept in his bedside table – a gift from Zolf in case his magic failed – before flipping on the light. 

With a groan, he dropped the dagger back in the drawer. He’d entirely forgotten about the kobolds sharing the inn in his hazy sleepiness, and he certainly hadn’t expected five of them to be sprawled out beside him, having used the chair blocking the door as an impromptu ramp so that they could easily get onto his bed.

One kobold was on their back, a leg kicking into the air as they slept. Another had curled into a ball, using their own tail as a pillow. The one that had awoken Wilde continued to let out a tiny whimpering snore that was almost endearing.

Almost.

The early light of dawn was beginning to creep around the edge of the blinds so, with a sigh, Wilde pulled himself out of bed and decided to get ready for the day. There was always plenty of work to get done, even if he hadn’t planned on a kobold alarm clock.

Though part of him really didn’t want to know, Wilde couldn’t help but check on the storage room where he’d previously placed the kobolds. It was empty.

Wandering around the inn, Wilde peeked into the various guest rooms, most of which had gone empty for too long, and found groups of kobolds on several beds, curled up and sleeping soundly. 

He sighed. It wasn’t as if anyone else was using the beds. The kobolds might as well make use of them. 

Was he going soft? The kobolds didn’t matter, not really, not when the whole world was at stake. But, as he slowly slid the door closed on a room full of sleeping dragons, Wilde couldn’t help but smile. Maybe they weren’t so bad after all?

*

They absolutely were so bad after all.

How was Wilde supposed to get any work done when a dozen kobolds had decided that his office was the ideal location for their daily havoc? 

Even though he’d woken early, there were already four kobolds inside his locked office, one of which had toppled over his chair, while another was snoozing in the sunny spot below the window, and the other two were… dismantling his desk?

“That’s my desk!” Wilde shrieked, and those two kobolds scampered away to the corner. “And my chair!” 

With what might have been an indignant huff, the kobold sitting on his fallen chair slowly crawled away and joined his companions in the corner. The last kobold still slept contentedly in the window. 

“Be more like that one,” Wilde said, gesturing to their drowsy friend. 

If they understood, they certainly didn’t act on those words. Wilde adjusted his chair and sat down, trying to ignore the scrabbling and chirping noises that sounded from around him, the clicking and clacking of claws in the hall outside his office, the excited draconic that sounded at inopportune moments. 

Many kobolds made their way in and out of his office throughout the morning. Most of them simply came to check on the new space and the shouty human and made their way out again after not too long. But some… some had other plans. 

One started to pull all of the books out of the bookshelf. They didn’t even read them before tossing them across the room. Another found Wilde’s lute, and continued to pluck its strings dramatically as Wilde attempted to get them away from it without damaging the instrument. 

And another decided that Wilde’s lap was the ideal place for a nap. He’d been working when something tugged at his sleeve. 

A kobold stared at him with big, round eyes, but they didn’t sway Wilde in the slightest. 

“What do you want?”

“Eep.” 

“Eep?”

“Eep!”

As explanation, the kobold began to scrabble up Wilde’s leg and haul themselves into his lap. 

“Absolutely not.”

Wilde grabbed the dragon under the arms and placed them back on the ground, where they immediately began to climb back up him. 

After three more tries at getting rid of the eeping kobold, Wilde finally surrendered. They spun around twice and then curled up into a tiny ball with what might have been a smile on their face. 

Wilde sighed. This close, the kobold was actually kind of cute. Totally interfering with his job and an utter annoyance, but cute all the same. With a shaky hand, Wilde hesitantly patted their scaly back and it let out a contented murmur. 

A few moments later, during which Wilde had almost warmed to the idea of having a sleeping kobold in his lap, the infuriating tapping noise that had been going all morning finally stopped. 

“Thank goodness.”

And then, with a slow creek, Wilde’s desk fell apart. Each leg slowly collapsed outwards and dropped the whole surface to the floor with a thunderous _BAM_. 

“Eep!” The kobold in Wilde’s lap shrieked and launched themselves from their resting place, but not before sinking their claws into Wilde’s legs. 

Another kobold that Wilde hadn’t noticed previously stood up from where they had been sitting underneath the desk while Wilde muttered a singsong to heal the small cuts on his skin from Eep’s claws. They patted their hands together, satisfied in their work. 

“What did you do!?” Wilde couldn’t even muster the fury to yell. He was exasperated and tired and baffled and so very overwhelmed. 

“Too much table,” they replied in shaky English. 

“Too much table?”

They nodded, then turned on their heel and marched out of the room, humming a little tune under their voice as they did so. 

With his desk and all of his work scattered on the floor, Wilde put his head in his hands and let out yet another sigh. War was raging outside his doorstep, yet it seemed that the most difficult battle was right in front of him. 


	3. Dark Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilde thinks that the kobolds are alien and foreign, until he realizes that their nightmares aren't so different from his own.

That evening, Wilde only had to fend off four kobolds that wanted to claim his bedroom as their own. He shooed them off to the other guest rooms, and they apparently found a sufficient location to rest, since they stopped bothering him after a while. Maybe they were starting to learn, to understand Wilde’s requests?

Doubtful. It was hard to be more of an annoyance than dismantling his desk while he was working at it, but the kobolds had certainly given it their best go throughout the course of the day. Several of them had dragged raw fish into his office, tossing the dead animal at him and looking at him with expectant eyes. When he, naturally, yelled at the thrown fish, the kobolds would grab their offering and scamper away into a corner, where they would chew obnoxiously on their meal. They didn’t even bother to clean up after themselves. Now everything smelled like fish. 

Wilde tried to put that all aside so that he could get some sleep. He knew from experience that even he needed rest, that he was useless when such rest was denied him. He still didn’t get the ‘recommended’ amount of sleep, whatever that was, but he did try to get a few hours each night at least. 

Midway through the night, he rolled over and noticed a light shining in his room. Part of him wanted to reach for the dagger again, but he knew better. 

He sat up and noticed the small kobold, the one that had sat on his lap earlier that day, standing in the doorway to his room. Their eyes were wide, and they held their tail in their hands while their body trembled. 

“Eep? Are you alright?”

The kobold let out a despairing squawk that even Wilde’s broken heart couldn’t ignore. He crawled out of bed and picked the kobold up, then carefully sat them down next to him so that they rested against the pillows. Eep refused to let go of Wilde’s arm, and he didn’t resist. 

“Bad dreams? Nightmares?”

The kobold either didn’t understand or was still so traumatized by the scenes recreated by their subconscious that they just continued to stare straight ahead with unblinking eyes, shaking against Wilde’s skin. 

“I get that. I have nightmares too,” he admitted. 

“Eep?”

“I do. It’s alright, you’re safe now.”

Eep let out a quieter squeak but continued to hold onto Wilde’s arm. Their claws sunk slightly into his skin but, as uncomfortable as it was, Wilde didn’t pull away. 

For the first time, he started to understand these kobolds. While the details of their torment would remain foreign to him, the pain, the suffering, the fear that still raced through them… _that_ he did understand.

After a while, Eep stopped trembling and their grip lessened. 

“Better?” Wilde asked, a faint smile on his scarred lips.

“Eep!”

“I’m glad.”

After a pause, the kobold turned to look up at Wilde. Their eyes were still wide, but this time they were filled with hope, not fear. 

“Eep?”

Wilde sighed, but how could he say no to a face like that? Besides, he knew how hard it was to get back to sleep after a nightmare. Usually, he just got up and went right to work to try and keep the darkness from taking over, or he would practice playing his lute and singing, much to the dismay of anyone who shared the inn with him and awoke in the early hours of the morning to mysterious music. 

“Of course, you can sleep here tonight,” Wilde said softly. 

“Eep!” 

“Alright, now, try to get some sleep. I’m here if you need me, all your other kobold friends too. We’re all… we’re all in this together, yeah?”

Kobolds didn’t seem quite capable of smiling in the way most humanoids could, but he’d started to pick up on some of their facial expressions, and Eep beamed up at him with joy and appreciation. They released their grip on Wilde’s arm just enough so that he could lay down and pull the covers up over him, then sat up, walked around in a circle twice, and thumped down on his side in a sleepy little ball. Soon enough, Eep’s breathing grew slower and turned into a faint snore. 

With a smile on his face, Wilde allowed himself to drift back off to sleep to the contented snores of a happy kobold. 

*

After another day of wrangling kobolds and trying, in the rare moments of respite, to strategize a worldwide war and relief effort, Wilde was exhausted. And it was in this exhausted sleep that the darker parts of Wilde’s subconscious were able to take over. 

He could feel the pain in his face so vividly, as if he was back there, watching a person he trusted more than anyone else lash out at him, ripping his skin apart. It stung and burned, but the hurt was more in his chest than in the actual injury. 

It wasn’t the first time Wilde had awoken in the middle of the night, shaking and screaming, his sheets drenched in a cold sweat. Going back to sleep after such a nightmare was almost more terrifying than the dream itself, so he would get up, clean himself off, and get to work. He couldn’t go back to that moment, or any of the other darker points his mind forced him to replay night after night. He couldn’t lose anyone else, even if he might awake in the morning and find that they were still there. 

Imagining the loss ahead of time didn’t lessen the blow when they were still inevitably taken from him anyway.

This time, when Wilde awoke with a yelp, heart pounding, he thought he was still in his dream. His chest was heavy and he could barely breathe; when he tried to sit up, he couldn’t move. 

His eyes wide, he scanned the darkness for any explanation, any escape from the torment. 

Instead, he found two glowing eyes that reflected the pale light coming in from the hallway back at him. 

“What… what?”

The kobold let out a quiet and reassuring chirp, then settled back into its resting place on Wilde’s chest. Cocking his head to the side, Wilde noticed a gigantic heap of kobolds beside him, taking up all the empty space on his bed. Save for the one on his chest, the remaining kobolds had all formed into one mass of scales and claws, snoring together in sync, as they pressed up against Wilde’s side. 

“Eep? Znal? Is everything alright?”

“Eep!”

“You. Bad dreams,” Znal replied, peeking up from the far side of the pile. “Help.”

“You wanted to help me with my nightmares?”

Still half asleep, Eep reached out from their place in the heap and pulled Wilde’s hand in close, holding onto it the way he had held theirs when their own nightmares had reigned over them. 

Znal, meanwhile, nodded, and then settled back into their place. 

The kobolds must have heard Wilde cry out in the night, and recognized what he was going through. Maybe Eep had organized them? Or maybe they all just knew what it was like, and wanted to be there for him all the same?

He glanced over at the heap, watching the kobolds snooze in peace. 

In the few days they’d been there, he’d never been particularly kind to them. He’d kicked them out of his office, berated them – for heaven’s sake, he’d locked them in a storage room! After they’d been enslaved and imprisoned! And still, they showed him compassion and came to him to comfort him when the darkness started to be too much. 

“I’m sorry,” Wilde whispered, even though the kobolds were too asleep to hear him and most probably wouldn’t understand him anyway. 

The little dragons might still be an annoyance at times, but they demonstrated a kindness in that one moment that most of the ‘more advanced’ races could barely conceive of. Everyone had their own idiosyncrasies, right?

Eep still holding his hand, Wilde settled back against his pillows. 

If those kobolds could accept him and _his_ idiosyncrasies, then he could certainly work with theirs. That’s what friends and family were for, right?


	4. Fresh Starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armed with a new respect for the kobolds, Wilde decides to try and make things right and turn the inn into a home.

Wilde slept well that night and it was late morning when he finally awoke, several kobolds still asleep or resting beside him. He extracted his hand from Eep’s claws and then headed out into the inn with a mission. 

The guest rooms Wilde so magnanimously allowed the kobolds to stay in once they demonstrated an affinity for sneaking out of the storage room were almost entirely empty. There was a bed with a bare mattress and that was it; no blankets, no chairs, nothing. 

He wasn’t sure if kobolds wanted a properly made bed, but he could at least present them the option. No wonder they kept crawling on him while he worked – they had nowhere else to sit! Though he had a feeling they might still sit on him even if he did provide them with chairs. 

Back in the storage room, Wilde grabbed piles of blankets and pillows, then turned to head back upstairs to make the inn more livable for its new inhabitants. 

A kobold blocked his path and squawked with confusion. 

“Blankets,” Wilde said, holding out a small stack to them. “For the beds. Can you help me take them upstairs?”

They squealed, and then darted away without taking any of the blankets. A twinge of annoyance rose up in Wilde again. He was trying to be kinder to these tiny dragons, and now they just ran off?

Several draconic noises sounded from the stairwell, and then a quiet thundering of claws and scaly feet echoed down the hall. The whole horde of kobolds rounded the corner and stared up at Wilde, a few hands outstretched, eager to help. 

Wilde smiled, and began to distribute kobold sized stacks of blankets, sheets, and pillows to the waiting mass of kobolds, who excitedly ran the supplies upstairs to the guest rooms. On his own, Wilde began hefting some of the chairs upstairs. They weren’t particularly heavy for him, but he didn’t want to risk a kobold getting crushed underneath one while trying to move it. 

But when he slipped at the top landing, the chair began moving of its own accord, and Wilde noticed four kobolds, one on each chair leg, moving the furniture into one of the larger guest rooms. Behind him, he noticed a pair of kobolds stepping out of his own bedroom, ready to head back downstairs for another supply run. 

Peeking into both of the rooms, Wilde saw that the kobolds had taken all of the blankets and pillows to create their own little dens in the empty space. Some were on the bed itself, others were tucked into alcoves, another couple under the few chairs that the kobolds were still carrying upstairs of their own accord. None of the kobold-sized beds in his own room impinged on his side of the bed, though. 

He’d expected the small dragons to spread out, to take a guest room to a few of them, but instead they’d consolidated into two rooms, one of which was his own. They wanted to be together, to keep their little family close by, even if they might still need their own space at times.

And that little family included him. 

Wilde headed back downstairs to find the kobolds waiting for him. They’d obviously decorated their rooms as they wanted and were ready to move on.

“Lunch?”

The answer was a chorus of excited kobold squeaking.

Together, they all trundled through the inn to the kitchen, where the chef was dutifully filling buckets with chunks of raw fish. 

“Do you… like the fish? Do you want something else?” Wilde turned to ask the kobold beside him. “Fish good?”

The cook watched him with confusion and a bit of disdain as this annoying English bureaucrat talked to an overgrown lizard but said nothing. Somehow, it wasn’t the strangest thing he’d seen since the inn was taken over.

The kobold nodded in response to Wilde’s question, but then stepped over to the cook and gently tugged on the bucket in his hand. 

“Give it to them,” Wilde instructed. 

With a huff, the chef relinquished his grip and then stormed out of the room. The kobolds turned to Wilde with worry in their gazes.

“It’s fine. He’s not a very good cook anyway.” He stepped over to the remaining two buckets of fish. “Warm? Cold? Raw?”

He certainly wasn’t going to eat raw fish for lunch, so he pulled over a pan and began grilling a piece for himself. It had been a long time since he’d actually cooked, or even eaten at a normal hour. Lunch often fell between the cracks when he was working, and neither breakfast nor dinner were safe from being forgotten either.

“Careful,” Wilde instructed as a kobold hopped up beside him, their face barely reaching over the edge of the stove. “Hot.”

He cocked his head to the side and wondered. Did kobolds experience heat and burning the way he might? It didn’t matter, he didn’t want to risk one burning themselves. 

While he let the fish sizzle and the kobolds watched in awe, Wilde clambered around to find several boxes and crates that would allow the kobolds to have a better view of what he did in the kitchen. When the fish was done, he waited for it to cool slightly, then pushed it toward the kobold who had first shown interest in cooking. 

“Try it.”

Meekly, claws darted out to grab the meal, and they began munching on the cooked fish. At first, their expression showed no change, but then it turned to glee, and they let out an overjoyed yelp.

“I better get working on some more fish,” Wilde muttered to himself. He pulled out some more pans and got to work. After a while, during which the curious kobold still watched him, having shared the one cooked fish with their companions, Wilde asked, “Hey, what’s your name? Name?” 

“Klak.”

“Klak? Would you like to learn how to cook?”

They nodded excitedly and jumped in place on the crate Wilde had provided them. 

He didn’t pretend to be a particularly good cook, but he knew enough, and he passed that knowledge onto Klak. Together, they cooked up all of the fish, and then distributed the meals to the remaining kobolds. Instead of digging in, they all took their fish, plated on wooden dishes, and looked up at Wilde expectantly. 

“I’ve got mine, don’t worry.” He smiled. “Follow me.”

The large table in the adjoining room had previously been reserved for meetings with important folk involved in the war effort and in solving the mystery of the blue veins. However, it wasn’t used very often. So, Wilde led the kobolds into it, leaned a couple chairs up against the edge, and allowed them to crawl up onto the table while he sat beside them. Once they were all seated with their plates, they dug in. 

“Good work, Klak,” Wilde said, nodding. “This is really good. Would you like me to show you how to cook other things?”

With a croaky voice, Klak replied, beaming, “Cook!”

“Yes!”


	5. New Directions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilde gets used to living with twenty kobolds and his bad habits start to change for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts of this chapter inspired by an amazingly knitted Skraak by bromeliaddreams on tumblr: https://bromeliaddreams.tumblr.com/post/611688653079609344/i-dont-know-if-i-already-posted-my-wee-knitted

Over the next few days, Wilde found himself teaching Klak and a few other curious kobolds how to cook a variety of meals. He wasn’t sure what the kobold diet usually included, but they were excited to learn and try new foodstuffs, even if most of them were different types of fish. Fruit was an exciting treat for them that they sliced up into small pieces and delicately ate at the end of a meal, like dessert. One day, when heading in for a lesson, Wilde found six kobolds already at work in the kitchen, each one wearing a chef’s hat and singing together in unison. Wilde didn’t know the words, but he didn’t need to. They felt safe, they were _happy_. And that made it all worthwhile. 

With a broken desk and a horde of kobolds that almost constantly wanted to share Wilde’s company, he elected to make the dinner table into his new workspace. That way, there was plenty of room for all of the kobolds to hang out with him, even if they just napped on a chair. And he could keep an eye on Klak and their crew of cooks when they ventured back into the kitchen to test out what they’d been learning. 

There was a lot of fire, and a lot of burned fish. But that was part of the learning process. And once they got the hang of cooking implements, they quickly became masters. 

The advantage of turning the new dining room into his office was that Wilde couldn’t avoid eating meals anymore. When it got close to mealtime, Klak and the others would already be in the kitchen preparing something. Most days Wilde joined them, half to help and half to supervise, but sometimes, if he was buried in paperwork, a plate was slid under his nose, with an extra dose of dessert fruit heaped on the side. 

Finally eating three meals a day again, Wilde noticed that he was putting on weight when one of his finely tailored jackets started to get a little tight. 

“Maybe having you guys around isn’t so bad after all,” he said, examining his appearance in the mirror. Where his cheeks were once gaunt and sallow, his skin now had a healthy glow. “I still look good, right?”

“Eep!” Eep cheeped happily. 

“Of course, I do. I _always_ look handsome.” 

With a chuckle under his breath, Wilde turned back to Eep, scooped them up in his arms, and headed downstairs to get to work. 

Once Wilde had softened about letting the kobolds sleep in his room, they soon raided his closet. Despite his new affection for the dragons, this greatly frustrated him. They had claws! They didn’t know that they’d ripped a fine silk shirt that he’d gotten in Damascus before everything went south.

But watching them crawl through jackets and attempt to walk in Wilde’s shoes, he couldn’t be _too_ mad. 

He’d been trying to find a calming activity to help himself settle down before going to sleep, now that a few kobolds would practically drag him to his bedroom if he stayed up too late, and one evening he realized it. If the kobolds liked _his_ clothes, maybe they would like their own? 

All of the instructional books were in Japanese, but the diagrams were universal, and Wilde found himself knitting. At first, scarves were all he could manage, but he made one for each kobold, and they wore them constantly, even if they did occasionally use them to smack each other playfully. After a while, he moved on to more advanced patterns, cranking out tiny sweaters for all of his small new friends. He tried to make booties for them too so that their claws wouldn’t scuff up the wooden floors any more than they already had, but those very claws just poked right through the wool. Also, it led to a few kobolds sliding haphazardly down the halls if they stepped wrong and their claws didn’t ground them appropriately. In the end, Wilde stuck with sweaters and scarves. The kobolds showed no signs of disliking the outfits, and it was almost hard to get them out of their sweaters when it came time for laundry day. 

One such laundry day, Wilde found himself engaged in a meeting with a man who once would have been considered a Harlequin. The titles didn’t matter so much anymore. They sat in Wilde’s old office around a shakily rebuilt desk and discussed the new developments made on a cure for the blue veined disease. With the information that Zolf, Hamid, Azu, and Cel had brought back from Shoin’s base, they’d been able to extract some more practical data, and it seemed that they might be close to a solution. 

However, close wasn’t good enough when people were still corrupted and dying. 

“Then _why_ can’t you just-”

Before Wilde could continue his passive aggressive tirade, the door creaked open. 

“Eep?”

“Oh, Eep, I’ll be right there.” Wilde’s voice immediately softened as he saw the kobold waiting in the doorway. He turned back to the Harlequin, brow furrowed, and said, “I need to take care of this. I’ll be right back.”

“What is that?” The Harlequin asked disdainfully. 

“This is Eep, a kobold. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

Wilde closed the door behind him and knelt down beside Eep. 

“What’s the matter?”

They tugged on the knitted sweater he wore over his repaired silk dress shirt. 

“I know, they’ll be dry soon. We have to clean them, or you’ll all start to smell!” The kobolds weren’t keen on laundry day, but Wilde insisted on this matter. 

Eep looked at him with sad eyes and pulled on the sleeve of his sweater again. 

“Alright, alright. Wouldn’t want you to be cold now, would we?”

Wilde removed his sweater and helped pull it over Eep’s head. Even though it was way too big for them, they cheeped happily and padded off down the hall. 

How was he supposed to go back into a tense meeting when every interaction with the kobolds softened his heart a little bit more? 

They had to find a cure. They had to end this war. If anyone hurt Wilde’s new kobold family, they would pay. 


	6. Last Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the gang returns to the inn to give Wilde an update, they notice blue veins starting to appear on his skin.

“Wilde! We’re back!”

“We- what happened to you?” Zolf asked as Wilde rounded the corner.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got kobolds on you.”

“Oh, of course. How rude. This is Klak,” Wilde introduced, lightly shifting one of the two kobolds in his arm to introduce them to the group. “And you remember Znal.”

“Why is one of them wearing a chef’s hat?”

“Because they’re the best cook around here, obviously.”

Zolf paused, incredulous. 

“I told you that you’d love them!” Hamid shrieked. 

Cel chuckled. “I didn’t know you could look happy! Every time I’ve seen you, you’ve been all _hur dur dur, work work work, I have never had a fun ever in my entire life!_ ”

“Well, what can I say?” Wilde replied, smiling at the two kobolds in his arms, knowing full well that most of the rest of the horde was behind him, either curious about the return of their rescuers or hiding and barely peeking out from behind a wall. “They’re not so bad after all.”

The whole group was beaming at Wilde, even Zolf, who couldn’t believe his eyes. 

“We found some valuable information,” Azu explained while Hamid quietly started chatting with one of the approaching kobolds, clearly getting the dirty gossip on how much of a softy Wilde had become. “Cel looked it over on our way back. We think-”

She froze. 

“What is it?”

“Your hand…”

Wilde looked down past Znal to examine his hand. There, tracing across his skin, was the faintest pattern of blue veins. 

“ _No_.” Zolf swore quietly.

Panic raced up Wilde’s spine, and he started to hyperventilate as tears formed in his eyes. Klak and Znal hugged him a little tighter, only knowing that their friend was upset; a few other kobolds came up to his side to check on him as well. 

“The kobolds… you said they were immune, right?”

Cel stepped forward to assure him. “They are. We were pretty sure before, but we _know_ that now. They’re safe.”

“Good. That’s what matters. I will… go to a quarantine cell.” Wilde’s words were disjointed, and he could barely manage to put a thought together. He carefully set down the kobolds in his arms, forcing himself to turn away even when they reached out for him and cheeped after him. “Bring the information you have down there, and we can decide what to do next.”

“Oscar…” Hamid said meekly, but Wilde was already gone. 

All of the kobolds tried to follow him, of course. They padded along behind him, murmuring amongst themselves and casting worried glances at him. They’d never been into the quarantine area before, but still, they diligently followed him as he slumped over to a cell and shut the door behind him before any of the kobolds could join him. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasped to them as the tears broke forth. He wouldn’t let anyone else see him cry. “I’m sick. Hurt. I have to…”

Small hands reached through the bars as the kobolds let out scared squawks, their eyes filled with sadness. All Wilde wanted was to reach out and hold them, to tell his family that they would be okay, and they would be okay without _him_. 

Instead, for fear that Cel’s calculations were wrong and the kobolds could get the disease, he slid away from them and sat on the hard cot that decorated the cell, staring blankly ahead. 

When the door to the prison opened again, Wilde quickly wiped his eyes and stood, buttoning his jacket and readying his appearance as best he could in a room that didn’t allow magic. 

“So, what did you find out?”

“Wilde, don’t do that,” Zolf insisted. It looked like he’d been crying too. “Don’t just act like this isn’t happening.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Wilde exclaimed. “The mission comes first. We have to… _you_ have to…”

“I think I’m close to figuring out what causes this,” Cel explained. “So, from there, a cure is easy. Relatively.”

“Good. Then, get working on that. Don’t worry about me. And, when I'm gone… take care of the kobolds. I know they don’t _need_ to be taken care of, but…”

“Wilde…” Zolf whispered, tears falling down his cheeks. 

“I promise, Oscar.” Hamid nodded. He then tugged on Azu and Cel’s elbows, and they left Zolf and Wilde alone. 

“We’re going to fix this,” Zolf said firmly. 

Wilde smiled despite himself. “We both know we’ve said that before, and we never did.”

“But we’re close now. We have a little bit before the disease gets too far. We’ll… we’ll cure you. You’ll be fine. You _will_ be. Damnit!”

“I’m just happy to know you’ll be in good hands.”

A heavy sob broke from Zolf’s lips and he turned away before the pain became too much. Once he was gone with the rest of his friends, Wilde allowed himself to cry again, sinking to his knees in the middle of the cell. Loud arguing sounded from outside the prison door and twenty pairs of glowing, worried eyes stared back at Wilde. Several kobolds hugged each other when they realized that Wilde wouldn’t take their hands, and they waited, watching, until Znal made for the door. 

They didn’t shut it behind them, though, so Wilde could hear Hamid and Cel talking to them in hushed draconic. Znal nodded, then came back into quarantine, rounded up a few other kobolds, and disappeared again. As they did so, Wilde could hear Hamid explaining to his friends that Znal had asked if they could help, but Hamid told them to stay put, take care of the other kobolds while they worked on a cure. 

Hearing this, Wilde smiled again. 

A few minutes later, the yelling outside the door dissipated and Wilde could hear footsteps, then the creaking of the inn’s main door. Shortly thereafter, the clacking of kobold claws grew closer. 

Znal and the kobolds they’d wrangled came into the room, blankets and pillows in hand, distributing them to their companions. Each one took them and promptly made their own little dens out of the supplies, most of them right outside of Wilde’s cell where they could curl up together and still keep an eye on their sick friend. 

“I’m going to miss all of you,” Wilde whispered.

He didn’t want to look at the veins on his hand, he didn’t want to watch as this disease took control of him from the inside out, he didn’t want to know what the infected version of himself might do to the kobolds or anyone else. Instead, he looked out at the kobolds, trying to memorize each detail and remember each anecdote, even the ones that had frustrated him and infuriated him at the time. 

At least, when it ended, he wouldn’t be alone.


	7. Relieved Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cel is working day and night on a cure for the blue veins that sprawl across Wilde's skin, but will they make it in time? What will happen to the kobolds if their friend doesn't make it?

Four days passed. The kobolds maintained their post outside Wilde’s cell, watching in dismay as they were still unable to help their friend and companion. At least Wilde got good food in quarantine, since Klak and their other chefs continued to cook meals for the whole group. It was better than whatever slop the human chef had formerly prepared for anyone stuck in the cells. 

There was no good way to pass the time until his death, so Wilde found himself knitting a lot after asking one of the kobolds to bring him his supplies. He wasn’t sure if it would ever be safe to give away the sweaters he made, in case they carried some trace of the disease he bore, but what else was he going to do? Sit and wait and mope until he asked Zolf to kill him, to spare him the ultimate fate of the blue veins? 

No, he would do _something_ , keep his mind off of it. The only problem was that when knitting, Wilde couldn’t ignore the blue veins in his hand anymore and how they spread across his skin. The blue was deeper and laced along him like an unwound skein of yarn. 

Znal took well to leadership. After getting over their initial guilt and fear, they’d soon become a been a bit of a ringleader, but now, when everyone was feeling the despair, they really stepped up to console the other kobolds and make sure that they all ate and slept as they needed. Meanwhile, Klak was rarely in the quarantine area, and instead had taken to cooking away the grief. And right next to Wilde’s cell, curled up against the bars so tightly that they left marks in their scales, was Eep. They held onto their tail with one hand and reached their other through the bars, almost never moving, hoping beyond hope that Wilde would reach out and hold them again like he had when their nightmares struck. 

“Excuse me, buddies!”

Every head looked up as Cel stepped carefully through the kobolds to reach Wilde. “I did it! We did it! It’s done! A cure!”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you really willing to wait for me to run more tests?”

“Good point.”

Hamid, Azu, and Zolf joined Cel as they were pulling out a syringe filled with a pale blue liquid. 

“Give me your arm.”

Wilde obliged and allowed Cel to inject him with whatever serum they had developed. They were right – even if it didn’t work, he didn’t have anything more to lose at that point. 

“Please work, please work…” Zolf muttered quietly. Hamid laced his arm through Zolf’s while Azu put a hand on each of their shoulders, squeezing them tightly with anticipation. 

“How long?” Wilde asked. 

“Shh, shh, science is happening,” Cel explained.

Wilde needn’t have worried. A few seconds later the veins began to fade, withdrawing into his hand where they’d started before disappearing entirely. 

“You did it!”

“They did it!”

“I did it!”

“Thank you,” Wilde exclaimed, unable to stop smiling and letting tears flow freely now. 

“I think I have a vaccine ready too. But we’ll worry about that later. First, let’s get you out of there.”

Zolf was already opening the cell and threw the door wide open so that he could hug Wilde. 

“Don’t you dare go almost dying on me again,” Zolf insisted. 

“No guarantees.”

“Smug piece of…” Despite his words, Zolf was grinning ear to ear. 

Zolf stepped to the side to allow Wilde out of the cell just in time to avoid being barreled over by twenty kobolds, who all sprinted at their previously imprisoned friend and tackled him to the ground. He practically smacked his head on the cot, but he didn’t care. He held onto each of the kobolds and hugged them, laughing and smiling as he did so. 

“I’m alright!” He cried as kobolds climbed all over him in glee. “Couldn’t get rid of me that easily, could you! Oh, I’m so glad I get to stay, I wouldn’t want to miss any of your ridiculous antics for _anything_. I love you, each and every one of you.”

In the corner, Azu, Hamid, Cel, and Zolf watched the scene with smiles on their faces.

“Thank you, Cel,” Zolf said quietly. “Thank you for saving him. I know it’s not just about him, it’s about everyone, but… well, you know.”

“I’m happy to help. And watch him get swarmed by kobolds.” 

“Do you think he’s okay?” Hamid asked. “I can’t tell if he’s screaming with happiness or terror.”

Azu chuckled. “I think he’ll be just fine.”

Meanwhile, Wilde hadn’t moved from the floor, taking the time to hug each kobold and tell them how much they meant to him. 

“Thank you,” Wilde said softly to all of the waiting eyes once he’d made the rounds, “for letting me be part of your family.”

The horde squeaked with excitement while Znal surveyed the situation with satisfaction and Eep held onto Wilde’s hand. This time, none of them would ever have to let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed kobold shenanigans!!! I had a lot of fun writing this and Eep is now one of my favorite characters I've created in anything ever. 
> 
> If you have any writing prompts about kobolds having good times and being safe and happy and not suffering ever ever ever again, please feel free to send them my way! 
> 
> And, if you want to read more of my writing or learn about my original characters, head on over to kellanswritingblog.tumblr.com, or feel free to come chat on my personal blog, celsidebottom.tumblr.com <3


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